Nope, you’re not talking drivel. The Mayhem does shadow memory so there is no contention with memory reads, which gives a very nice speed boost regardless of clock speed.
You’re spot on too with regards to changing palette. A very simple routine to change the palette at parts of the screen carries next to no overhead (even without the Mayhem). It’s used in games like Lemmings.
It’s just down to the programmer and graphics artists working to make the most of the graphics to suit what they are doing.
16 colours may sound very limiting, but there’s been some truely stunning graphics on the Sam in both games and demos, but there has also been a lot of games with just simple coloured sprites on a black background - which i’m guilty of myself! (Although it’s easier cpu time wise to have blank backgrounds to save masking and redrawing… especially when there was a sampled soundtrack playing!)
Quick graphical anecdote, years ago one publisher who had secured a license had a programmer using SCADs and recoloured ZX Spectrum graphics to make the game, instead of machine code and using the Atari ST / Amiga gfx and backgrounds - which I offered to do - but as the other chap had already started in SCADs it was left to him. Would have been a waste of the license I think if it didn’t get the best out of the Sam. But hey ho that’s life, and it was never finished anyway…
Even 15+ years into the Sam’s life there’s still plenty of scope with what we’ve got. Invasion II by Warren Lee on Sam Revival 10, although written in GamesMaster it’s bloody impressive, backgrounds, the detail, well animated sprites - especially the giant sprites for the end of game baddie. And demo wise what really stood out recently for me is the rotating texture mapped planet in one of Andrew Collier’s demos - that was amazing! (How’s that going Andrew - did you ever change it from bytes to pixels which you were thinking about?)
I’m still in the process of revamping Conquest’s graphics for it’s re-release, the gameplay was sound but I really think the graphics needed updating, and there’s also a brand new soundtrack written for it to go in too. I just need to sort out some good time to sit down in front of Paint Shop Pro and SamPaint to finish that!
Colin
=====
Quazar : Hardware, Software, Spares and Repairs for the Sam Coupe
1995-2007 - Celebrating 12 Years of developing for the Sam Coupe
Website: http://www.samcoupe.com/
Re: One more thing
Nope, you’re not talking drivel. The Mayhem does shadow memory so there is no contention with memory reads, which gives a very nice speed boost regardless of clock speed.
You’re spot on too with regards to changing palette. A very simple routine to change the palette at parts of the screen carries next to no overhead (even without the Mayhem). It’s used in games like Lemmings.
It’s just down to the programmer and graphics artists working to make the most of the graphics to suit what they are doing.
16 colours may sound very limiting, but there’s been some truely stunning graphics on the Sam in both games and demos, but there has also been a lot of games with just simple coloured sprites on a black background - which i’m guilty of myself! (Although it’s easier cpu time wise to have blank backgrounds to save masking and redrawing… especially when there was a sampled soundtrack playing!)
Quick graphical anecdote, years ago one publisher who had secured a license had a programmer using SCADs and recoloured ZX Spectrum graphics to make the game, instead of machine code and using the Atari ST / Amiga gfx and backgrounds - which I offered to do - but as the other chap had already started in SCADs it was left to him. Would have been a waste of the license I think if it didn’t get the best out of the Sam. But hey ho that’s life, and it was never finished anyway…
Even 15+ years into the Sam’s life there’s still plenty of scope with what we’ve got. Invasion II by Warren Lee on Sam Revival 10, although written in GamesMaster it’s bloody impressive, backgrounds, the detail, well animated sprites - especially the giant sprites for the end of game baddie. And demo wise what really stood out recently for me is the rotating texture mapped planet in one of Andrew Collier’s demos - that was amazing! (How’s that going Andrew - did you ever change it from bytes to pixels which you were thinking about?)
I’m still in the process of revamping Conquest’s graphics for it’s re-release, the gameplay was sound but I really think the graphics needed updating, and there’s also a brand new soundtrack written for it to go in too. I just need to sort out some good time to sit down in front of Paint Shop Pro and SamPaint to finish that!
Colin
=====
Quazar : Hardware, Software, Spares and Repairs for the Sam Coupe
1995-2007 - Celebrating 12 Years of developing for the Sam Coupe
Website: http://www.samcoupe.com/